Shareholders Approve Acquisition at Harrah's

Harrah’s Entertainment shareholders approved a us$ 17.1 billion buyout Thursday by two private equity groups in the largest deal ever to take a publicly held casino company private, officials said. The deal still requires approval from gambling regulators in more than a dozen states and several tribal nations where Harrah’s operates.

Shareholders controlling 66 percent of outstanding stock approved selling the world’s largest casino company to Apollo Management Group and Texas Pacific Group, Harrah’s officials announced. Las Vegas-based Harrah’s board had unanimously recommended approval.

The deal still requires approval from gambling regulators in more than a dozen states and several tribal nations where Harrah’s operates, said Frank Schreck, a Las Vegas lawyer who represents Harrah’s in regulatory matters. Nevada gambling regulators could be asked to take up the question this fall, Schreck said.

The shareholder votes were tallied after a 10-minute meeting attended by about 100 shareholders that was closed to the public. Apollo spokesman Steven Anreder said the New York-based company was pleased with the vote. He declined further comment. A representative for Texas Pacific, based in Fort Worth, Texas, declined immediate comment.

Harrah’s shareholders emerging from the voting meeting at Caesars Palace hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip said they were pleased with the us$ 90-per-share buyout offered in December. They said the meeting, headed by Harrah’s CEO Gary Loveman and corporate secretary Michael Cohen, proceeded routinely.

Harrah’s shares rose 14 cents to close at us$ 84.90 Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares have traded from us$ 58.22 to us$ 85.58 during the past 52 weeks. It won European Union approval for the buyout Wednesday after the European Commission received no complaints from rivals and identified no antitrust problems. The EU usually rules on combinations in which companies have joint global revenue of more than us$ 6 billion.

The buyout, which has the buyers also assuming us$ 10.7 billion in debt, represents the seventh biggest leveraged buyout deal of any kind of company. The largest ever completed to date was RJR Nabisco’s us$ 25 billion acquisition by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., completed in 1989.

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